Sunday, January 22, 2012

In the last 6 months or so, Dakin has REALLY caught up on his speech. He is more or less exactly where he should be now, and it is so fun to hear him articulate his thoughts. Here are some of the gems of late:

(Playing with rubber bands, he had them stretched and said they were swimming.) I said, "It's swimming?" He said, "Rubber bands don't swim!"

(With his nurse, watching videos on the iPad. One of them doesn't want to load) J: "I don't think it's loading, baby." Dakin, pointing to circular thing on the iPad that runs when it's thinking, "See that thing? That thing means it's LOADING." (evidently said in a tone that made Jane feel stupid...he has quite a bit of attitude).

And the best one: "Mommy, I love you a lot." Me: "I love you a lot too." D: "I love you one more."

He has also recently threatened to put me in time out for saying the word crazy, and on December 26, he said "I love you" spontaneously to me for the first time...it was awesome. Now I get to hear it all the time!

Saturday, January 7, 2012

HI! It's been a while, I know...but one of my New Year's Resolutions is to be better with blogging. And so here is the first attempt at keeping that promise. So....without further ado...

TRASH FOR A CURE.

What is this, you ask? Only the easiest and most perfect fundraiser EVER. See, there is an awesome company called TerraCycle that will take hard-to-recyclables and upcycle or recycle them: things like Malt-O-Meal cereal bags, etc. And they will GIVE YOU MONEY for said items. .01-.02 cents per item to the charity of your choice. They even pay the shipping so you can get the items to them. This is a win-win all around! Money for charity, they get stuff for their products, and the earth doesn't have to take a bag that will NEVER.EVER.ROT.

This project makes my heart sing!

SO: Trash for a Cure. We are going to gather hard-to-recycle items to send to TerraCycle to raise money for SMARD research at the Jackson Laboratory. Now, 2 cents may not seem like much, but if we can make this big, it can make a real difference in finding a cure for Dakin.

Anyone can help, anywhere in the country! Are you interested? Here's how!

1. You can choose an item group to gather (talk to friends, host a drive through a church or scout or any kind of other group), get a bunch of it, and send it in to TerraCycle through our group account (again, TerraCycle pays shipping, so this is free!!)

2. If you are local to the East Texas area, you can choose to gather or host a drive for all of these items and give them to me and I will ship them!

If you are interested in organizing a drive, I will have flyers available early next week--just let me know!

SO WHAT KIND OF ITEMS CAN WE GATHER?

You can choose any one or more of the following, or all of them if you are local to the East Texas area!

So, as you can see, there is a TON of stuff from which you can choose to collect if you are out of town, or all of them in the East Texas area. And remember, all the proceeds from this fundraiser will go to SMARD research at the Jackson Laboratory. Trash for a Cure is an easy, eco-friendly and fun way to cure SMARD! I hope you will join us as we help collect Trash for a Cure!